PowerShell script to create symbolically linked (mklink) copies of WoW

[mercdev]

I must be missing something in reading people's troubles here. I guess people kinda gloss over the setup instructions, or it's foreign enough to not make sense. From the file itself:

# Setup:
# 1) Download and install Windows PowerShell:
# http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserv...l/default.mspx
# 2) Run PowerShell as administrator
# 3) Set your script execultion policy to run local scripts without a digital signature:
# Get-Help About_Signing
# Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
# 4) Copy New-Wow.ps1 to somewhere in your path OR replace "new-wow" in the examples below
# with the script path.

So after PowerShell launches, type "Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned" and hit enter. Then type "Get-Help About_Signing" to read what's going on and why. To see if you've set yours correctly, type "Get-ExecutionPolicy", it should return "RemoteSigned".

Kudos to the author, it works great on my system and REALLY reduced the amount of disk activity. :thumbsup:

[pengwynman]

why isn't this thread stickied? :P

[Ellusionist]

I'll admit from the beginning that I didn't read anything but the first few posts, but:

What's the point of Symlink'ing folders? If your hard drive is reading from the exact same location for data being accessed for all five (or whatever) clients, then how does it help performance?

The only reason I can see this being helpful is if you're wanting to keep separate settings/addons for each of your slaves. This may be the entire reason for it altogether... like I said, I didn't read. I'm just bored and skimming DB.com posts.

And yes, it's Friday, and I type well when I'm drunk.

[Chorizotarian]

What's the point of Symlink'ing folders? If your hard drive is reading from the exact same location for data being accessed for all five (or whatever) clients, then how does it help performance?

With a symbolic link the OS knows that the 5 copies of the same gignormous data file that are simultaneously being loaded by wow.exe really are the same file, so it only loads them once. If you just copy and paste the wow folder it thinks they are different files and you get disk thrashing.

[Ellusionist]

What's the point of Symlink'ing folders? If your hard drive is reading from the exact same location for data being accessed for all five (or whatever) clients, then how does it help performance?

With a symbolic link the OS knows that the 5 copies of the same gignormous data file that are simultaneously being loaded by wow.exe really are the same file, so it only loads them once. If you just copy and paste the wow folder it thinks they are different files and you get disk thrashing.

Hmm, odd. I'm sure much testing has been done to prove it works, I'm still just not understanding how. I realize only one file location is being accessed, but five instances of wow.exe accessing that same "loaded data" one time instead of five, at a CPU/memory level, seems a little extreme.

Seems like all it would cut down is seek time from fragmented data to fragmented data between individual folders. I guess that answers my confusion!

*shrug* :S

[Talamarr]

Other than the settings, is this really better than running 1 wow folder for all your toons? Or is it the same and you just get the benefit of separate video, sound, etc settings?

[emesis]

Other than the settings, is this really better than running 1 wow folder for all your toons? Or is it the same and you just get the benefit of separate video, sound, etc settings?

It is _much_ better in my experience (actually using junction points in XP, which are analagous but not identical to symlinks in Vista) then running 1 wow folder.

[Multibocks]

Winbolic Guide - Symlinking for XP[/url] had the same error but there were no further replies on that thread :wacko:

I went back to Powershell and New-wow.ps1 figuring spacing might help in the ps1 file, renamed my "wow2-4" folders and went into the new-wow.ps1 file and changed:

"$env:ProgramFiles\World of Warcraft" 

to:

"c:\Program Files (x86)\World of Warcraft" 

I got to c:\bin and did the " Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned" I ran "c:\Bin> new-wow c:\wow2" in powershell. I end up getting an error:

At c:\bin\New-Wow.ps1:86 char12 
cmd <<<< /c "mlink $d `"$link`" `"$target`"" > $null 
The term 'cmd' is not recognized as a cmdlet, function, operable program or a script file. Verify the term and try again. 

I end up getting a new wow2 folder containing a WTF folder and Launcher.exe

Any suggestions or insight?

Whats the deal with this? I have the same issue telling me that cmd is not recognized. This is on a brand new (1 hour out of the box) computer. :thumbdown:

[Multibocks]

DyzzyD,

I gave up on the Powershell deal....I did a forum search for Symlink. The very first result will be Symlink Help. Look at that post and you'll find a link to a different program that helps with the associations. Here's what I did:

1. Downloaded and installed the program.
2. Created copies of my main Warcraft folder (I ended up with World of Warcraft, WoW2, WoW3, WoW4, WoW5 all on my E:\ drive)
3. Navigate to your copies and DELETE your Data and Interface folders
4. Navigate to your main World of Warcraft folder and Control Left Click your Data and Interface folders
5. Right click on one of your highlighted folders (should be Data or Interface)
6. Choose Pick Link Source
7. Navigate to one of your copies (ie. WoW2) and right click on the folder
8. Choose Drop As...Symbolic Link
9. Repeat 4-8 until you've created the symbolic links for all your copies

Now you should have a main World of Warcraft folder with 4 copies that use the Data and Interface folders from the main. I linked the interface folder to use the same mods on all accounts. You can just link the Data folder if you prefer different mods on each.

This save me a ton of space on my hard drive and appears to have improved my performance too. Good luck! If you need any help or have questions just yell.



Kris

Just a small note, highlight all for the copy/paste and then ctrl click off data and interface folders. Saves you copy/pasta 7GB for 2 or more times.

[FattyMoBookyButt]

I was having the "Failed to open archive Interface.MPQ" issue as well, but I could tell my symlinks were not working correctly by clicking normally on each folder (Data and Interface) and I would receive an error. I figured out it was pure user error for me, I needed to put in the fully qualified path in the mklink command for the target:

cd C:\Users\Public\Games

No worky

mklink /D "WoW 1\Data" "World of Warcraft\Data"
mklink /D "WoW 1\Interface" "World of Warcraft\Interface"
mklink /H "WoW 1\Wow.exe" "World of Warcraft\Wow.exe"

Works!

mklink /D "WoW 1\Data" "C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft\Data"
mklink /D "WoW 1\Interface" "C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft\Interface"
mklink /H "WoW 1\Wow.exe" "C:\Users\Public\Games\World of Warcraft\Wow.exe"

(I'm running Vista Home Premium and I had already created the directory "WoW 1" and copied everything but the Data, Interface and Wow.exe)